It’s been a hectic week for Gabe and Myra Gleason.
The owners of Wild Bloom Coffee have been closed since Monday as part of their kitchen expansion, a significant step in continuing their vision of operating a chef-inspired coffee shop, complete with more fresh and healthy food options, and other staples such as fresh loaves of bread and a wider assortment of pastries.
“With any small business, the more you stay closed, the more of a hole you’re making,” Myra noted. “We’ve been watching the progress every day” in order to ensure the coffee shop reopens as planned on Friday.
“We waited a few months, just because of how the season is,” Gabe explained. “We wanted to be available for graduations, and catering summer events. There’s never a good time to do any of this, but it’s a better time now.”
The work sounds simple on its face, to create a 3-foot-wide entry way in the kitchen’s wall, connecting Wild Bloom with the vacant building next door the Gleasons obtained in 2024.
But the buildings, which date back to the 1880s, were obviously built to last. Boring through a solid cement fire wall and four layers of flooring to extend utilities such as plumbing is easier said than done.
“Figuring out how to take the plumbing from the kitchen we have now over to that side has been a pain,” Gabe said.
The Gleasons hired Joel Wicoff to engineer the new entrance, Robertson Masonry to bore and finish the entryway, and CDL to extend the plumbing.
The advantage is the next door building already has a kitchen, allowing the Gleasons to expand their offerings.
“We’ve outgrown our kitchen, even though we’ve done so much in it,” Myra said. “It’s time for us to be able to have space for our staff to grow into their positions.”
“To be honest, it’s been amazing to see what we could do in such a tiny kitchen as it is,” Gabe agreed. “It’s as small as a home kitchen.”
THE $16,000 project received a boost when the Gleasons were notified recently Wild Bloom qualified for a $5,000 FORGE grant from Pittsburg State University’s Small Business Development Center.
The grant program — Fostering Opportunities for Research, Growth and Entrepreneurship — is designed to support and accelerate economic activity in the state.
To qualify, recipients must match at least $1,000 to qualify for the full $5,000. The Gleasons, who started planning for the expansion long before they knew about FORGE, easily exceeded that threshold.
“When we learned this grant had become available, we already had everything in place,” Myra noted. “We already had our blueprints, the permits, even approval from the fire chief.”
THE NEW entryway is Stage 1 of the kitchen expansion.
